The elegant left hander from India, Yuvraj Singh has been heavily criticised for his 21 ball 11 runs innings, which many claim to be the reason for India's loss against Sri Lanka in the T20 World Cup final in Bangladesh. Prior to the finals, India were unbeaten in the competition. Can Yuvraj Singh be blamed for India's loss?

Madhav Apte, a former Indian cricketer feels Yuvraj should not be blamed for the loss. He said, ''It would be unfair for anyone to blame Yuvraj. It was one of his off-days. Sometimes you hit, while sometimes you miss.'' Yuvraj walked into bat in the 11th over of the game with the score reading 60 odd runs for the loss of two wickets. With Virat Kohli batting in form of his life, a score of around 150 plus runs was achievable.

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But what followed surprised everyone, where Yuvraj, who was once a dangerous batsman only looked a shadow of himself. He could not strike the ball and even when he did, it went straight to the fielder.

Apte said, ''One has to remember that the batsman was not trying to block the ball, but was trying to hit the ball, but, he was not connecting. Such things can happen to any international cricketer and yesterday it was Yuvi.'' With Yuvraj failing to score, the Indian fans seated in the stadium were silent and anxious, waiting for Yuvi to explode, which never happened. Yuvraj fell under pressure and the Sri Lankan bowlers took advantage of the situation.

The matter was made worse when the in-form batsman, Virat Kohli could not receive enough strike in the last four overs of the game, which tilted the game in favour of the island nation. Instead of going for the expansive shots, Yuvraj could have rotated the strike and helped Kohli face majority of the balls. This could have helped India come up with a better score.

One should not take credit from the Lankan bowlers, primarily Malinga and Kulasakera, who were at their best in the death overs. ''Malinga is one of the best bowlers in the T20 format. He is not an easy bowler to play as well,'' said Apte. They bowled to their plan – wide yorkers outside the off-stick and the Indian batsmen were left clueless, which also included MS Dhoni.

India's total of 130 runs against the strong batting line up of Sri Lanka never looked enough with the number of quality Sri Lankan batsmen at their disposal. They achieved the target in the 18th over.

This loss was not received well in India, especially in Chandigarh, where stones were pelted towards the India batsman's house. It was the same Indian cricket fans who praised him for his stupendous performance in the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup. Twitter also went abuzz with Indian fans criticizing Yuvi for his disappointing performance. '' This is typical of the Indian fans,'' said Apte.